Read the flash pieces at the links below:
1st Place: The Pasture by Enchi
2nd Place: Neo–Jerusalem by Chinedu Gospel
3rd Place: The Balloon Game by C. J. Anderson-Wu
Finalists: Pretending by Chris Clemens and Girlfriend as DiVine, from Disney World by Brady Alexander
Honorable Mention:
- “Crooked Love” by Anastasia Jill
- “An Absurdist’s Lament” by J. J. Steinfeld
- “Sitting on the Grass After the Last Spring Exam in Golden Valley, Minnesota” by Emily Brisse
- “Tethered” by Amy Scheiner
- “Game Theory” by Eleanor Stanford
Here are a few words from Rachel Howard about the winner, “The Pasture:”
‘”The Pasture” makes us pay attention to its tonal ambiguities from the first sentences. This casually spoken yet artfully controlled prose plays with our expectations of pastoralism and quickly undercuts sentimentality, surging toward a sincere celebration of biological existence with its daily mix of ecstasy and suffering. Enchi writes from an understanding that levity and gravitas are equal forces, inextricable.’